This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Minesticks on 2024-10-21 02:25:51+00:00.
Does anyone remember playing tag? I sure do. The first time I played tag, or at least got introduced to it was back in first grade. The constant shrieking of “You’re it!” would’ve irritated me to death right now, but it was fun back then. I never really grew out of tag either. I had a friend group, 5 people, who’d play tag up until highschool. People would leave or join the group every now and then, but it was those five people that stayed.
I was playing with those five people that day. It was autumn, when the maple trees were most vibrant in color and leaves littering the ground. I never liked autumn, never did ever since 3rd grade. I read there were small bugs crawling all over dead leaves, and it really disgusted me. And it just happened we were playing in a forest behind the backyard of one of our friends. His name was Tom. Tom was a slightly overweight guy, maybe even ‘chubby’. We called him ‘Fat Tom’ for that (yes, we were real clever). He wore glasses, but most of the time we played, he wore contacts instead. He was a solid guy, a stand-up guy I might even say, except for his sudden outbursts stemming from his anger issues. Anyways, we started.
“Rock, scissors, paper, shoot!”
“Ah damn, do I really have to? You guys know I’m not fun when I’m ‘it’,” Tom complained.
“Fucking pussy.” another of my friends chanted.
“Fine.”
Tom counted to ten, and started chasing us. He wasn’t wrong when he said he was bad at being ‘it’. He was horrible. 10 minutes straight and he couldn’t catch us. We kept taunting him for this, maybe we went too far though. It was kind of hilarious how pathetic he looked. And then he cornered me. He didn’t notice, but there was quite a sizable drop if I went any further back. I really didn’t want to get caught though, getting caught by Tom was almost as bad as playing like him.
So I bluffed, “You’re too slow.”
I made a run for it. My heart rate accelerated, the only thing I could hear besides Tom’s breathing. He eased closer. Too close. He started to wind-up, like one of those toy cars. In that split-second moment, Tom charged at me, tackling me.
“Shit.”
We tumbled down, rolling through the dead leaves. I groaned in pain as I hit a rock on the way down, leaving a bruise and quite a considerable scrape to my left knee. Then a crack. A cracking noise came from my right and as I turned to see, I felt it. Blood pooled under my head. It wasn’t my own. I looked. I wish I didn’t. The image of Tom’s skull torn open by a jagged rock is burned into my retina to this day. Blood was gushing out, a chunk of his head missing. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. The grotesque sight captured me, like a warm embrace, but slightly too warm and slightly too tight. I wanted to gouge my eyes out. Everything went black afterwards.
The next time I woke up, I was in the hospital. I rested for a little bit then I remembered. I called one of the friends over and asked.
“Is he okay?” I said in a half-panicked half-worried voice.
“…”
“Well, is he?” I said, hoping to hear some kind of miracle.
“Who are you talking about dude?”
I was confused. Tom. How could they forget? I saw his injuries. They’ve got to know.
“Tom. Who else? Is he okay?”
“Who?”
“Stop messing with me asshole.”
“I’m not.”
“This is a new low. Lying to a disabled person? Are you genuinely confused who Tom is, dumbass?”
“Yeah.”
“Fat Tom. We were playing tag, do you not remember? He fell with me.”
“There’s no Tom we know, John, you’re delusional. Also what the fuck is tag?”
“Fuck off dude.”
After the fall, it was like Tom never existed. No photos, videos, hell, even his name itself. Look it up yourself. ‘Thomas Whitman’. The closest I got was some rapist from Oklahoma. I did find his parents though, Susan and James. They had a stillborn baby. It wasn’t just Tom—tag vanished too. Nobody knew the game, they just told me, funnily enough, “great idea”.
I spent years searching—desperate to find even a game remotely similar, with names like ‘chase’ or something, I’m not really that clever. The game was gone. Tom was gone.
It is as if reality erased this memory that only I can recall. So, I will ask once again.